Ask Prof Wolff: Top Down or Bottom Up - Proudhon vs. Marx
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- čas přidán 7. 06. 2022
- A Patron of Economic Update asks: "The strategy of d@w regarding changing society is, as far as I understand, to build a movement bottom up from cooperatives to network of cooperatives. I live in France and there was an important person, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who favored that approach. He was in strong opposition to Marx’s more aggressive approach and had some influence in the ideas of the participants in the adventure of the french commune. It would be interesting to know what your opinion/idea is regarding his philosophy. I mention this because a french left intellectual called Michel Onfray (he is quite popular) is for Proudhon’s bottom up approach and strongly against a centrist approach through the state (Melanchon and the rest of the so called left). Onfray mentioned the workers co-op LIP which seems to have been killed by both left and right. He says that the co-op approach of LIP is strongly in sync with Proudhon."
This is Professor Richard Wolff's video response.
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"The real problem is that "limited government" invariably leads to unlimited government. If history is to be any guide and current experience is to be any guide, we in the United States 200 years ago started out with the notion of limited government - virtually no government interference - and we now have a massive quasi-totalitarian government."
Murray Bookchin
With all due respect, seizing the state ultimately preserves the state as power corrupts and the State or rather those managing the State only seek to grab more power.
Two quick points about the Paris Commune:
1-Marxism was simply non-existant inside the Commune
2- The reason why the Commune did not succeed was not that "they didn't know what to do with the State". There were a number of reasons, and tactical decisions regarding State institutions is only one of many. Ultimately the Comunne was supressed in Manslaughter perpetrated by the Versailles army.
Finally, we see the power of Wolff!
you mean his misleading and lies. he touts a failed economic model that has never worked anywhere.
@@robertprice9052 when a baby learns to walk... every time they stand up they fall. eventually they learn from mistakes and make enough changes for it to work. capitalism took a few hundred years to get its stuff together. and so did feudalism after Rome fell... ecconomic systems take a bit to take hold but they are made popular by the dying endstages of the previous ecconomic syatem only working for a select few. this is why we alwYs go to a new ecconomic system. and in 1000 years we will be twice removed from calitalism and from what w er came next going to an even newer ecconomic system....
@@robertprice9052 And when did capitalism work?
If you are talking about making African people poor where Africa is the resource's richest continent.
Or about poverty in Latin America and several dictatorships and coup d'etat administered by imperialism.
Or if you are talking about Wars everywhere without any vision of how to stop them or why they started, sometimes because of a little lie, like in Iraq.
Or if you are talking about the exploited USA people where in the most powerful country in the world workers are paying the highest taxes on earth without receiving any medical or social protection.
Finally if you are a rich capitalist and you are defending your position, I can understand that, but if you are a worker working all day and you are on the edge of bankruptcy every month, I can not understand how on earth you are defending the system which is exploiting you and many others.
@@robertprice9052 agree with @Dee Lee, but also want to add what Michael Pernti talks about - every time people try to institute a "new" system, the existing system doesn't help them (in a spirit of democracy - "you people want to try something new? Wow, that's great, what can we do to help you succeed?"), but quite the contrary, all the economic and military power is used to fight this democratic desire for change. So the baby is not only learning to walk on its own, but trying to learn while others keep knocking it down.
@@rebelwinds Yes
Everyday when I feel he can’t blow my mind anymore…after 3 years following. Wolff blows it again 🤯
Really. That blew your mind?
Those that seize the state will ultimately see the anarchists as a threat. So if you find yourself seizing the state, be nice to us anarchists.
Public ownership is the glue that hold socialist society together and can uphold the socialist social contract which we need.
The problem is that it is either or. The Anarchist critique is that AFTER the seizing of the state those who did so would be changed before they where able to abolish the institution that they where now in control of and, that they would fail to do so not because of personal failings but because their material incentives have changed, because their class interest has changed from that of proletarian to bourgeoisie-statist. If you abolish the state via the construction of rival institutions of dual power however this does not become an issue as the state functions are truly "withered away" until the capitalist, and all other exploitative classes are forced into either quite expropriation or open revolutionary combat with the new organized revolutionary society. You cannot have your cake an eat it too, you cannot create a society free of something with the thing you want to be free of, means and ends are connected, capitalism does not create socialism and statism does not create a state-less society, so if we want a communist society with: no capitalism, no markets, no money, no states, no borders, ect. we cannot use those things in the positive construction of a new society now, nor can they be deferred indefinitely to some vague point "after the revolution", they must be worked towards and accomplished as much as possible now.
I’d have to take you back to the end of the American Civil war when the owners of money and the owners of labor-power were declared equal in law, politics, and in society since the decree of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1865. Free markets conditions had been established for a period of 157 years by the State in which individuals, black, white, brown, red, were free to dispose their labor-power to any buyer, broke away the old bonds of slavery.
The first condition that gave rise to capitalism is : Capitalism emerges by turning people into ‘free people’, particularly black people are no longer ‘commodity-slaves’ where the slave is the commodity. Like you and I, we have become possessors of a special commodity, i.e., labor-power. Here I might ask, would a new individual be needed for the emergence of a socialist society?Capitalism appealed to a subjective component and succeeded.
The second condition is: The Owners of Money, people like Gates, Musk, etc., enjoy the Rights of Ownership, but they must find labor-power for sale. Sellers of commodities that are not labor-power must own the means of production, the raw material, implements, etc., creates a condition within a condition. The means of subsistence, health care, food, housing, medicine, clothes, have to be free of ownership of both commodity owners. Money cannot be converted into capital without such conditions in place. The abolition of the conditions are more critical than the money itself in the abolition of capitalism. The two conditions explains what the State is used for in a capitalist society. 1. Assisting or facilitating capital finding labor-power to buy and 2., breaking the bond between labor and the necessaries of life for capital to expand.
I think the key to building a revolution is to reveal the conditions as having no natural basis in life but have a social basis that when people possess nothing but their own labor-power billionaires are made is reversible. The State sets the stage for the conditions the result of human history and development, the result of the extinction of an entire series of older forms of social production. The State can do the same with the capitalist class. The products produced in America are intended for the immediate consumption of the working class is the reason the products become commodities in the first place, a condition a new state would have to eradicate through education. The State can make capitalists produce cars, houses and goods that last forever, consume less fossil fuel by way of changing the miasma of consumerism. The rotten habits of the working class to over consume are conditions for the growth of capitalism are abolished without the state but with the development of a new individual, a social Being. Put the subject back into socialism and get away from the language of politics if you want the lay person to pay attention to your call.
A lot of assumptions in that argument, any real world facts to back them?
@@rcmrcm3370 Read any "history of anarchism" in any of the following places to see the historical precedent for being against the seizure of state power: Argentina, Uruguay, Boliva, Chile, Brazil, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Ukraine, Russia, Korea, China, Cuba, Vietnam or Spain (you can also find CIA documents where they spied on (to undermine) Latin American revolutionary movements and found that trotskyites and other sectarian left groups actively undermined Anarchists, this kind of dual oppression from both foreign intelligence agency and other domestic socialist groups still happens to this very day to the benefit of said intelligence agencies). In all of these places there was an explicit anti-capitalist movement that was co-opted and or destroyed by their statist comrades, what is more damming is that their "degeneration from workers states or actually existing socialism" was not only forewarned against by the Anarchists, but with prophetic vision also anticipated the "state capitalist" forms of political economy that they would use as a smoke and mirror distraction from the fact that there can be no socialism nor dialectal development towards such a radical rupture with capitalism hegemony by taking control of the state. This is not even taking into account over 20 years of successful revolution and defense there of in Oaxaca and other EZLN liberated areas without the need for states, prisons or secret police.
@@rcmrcm3370 Refute the argument and the facts will emerge in favor of the argument.
This comment is so based
Agree that this two pronged approach is the one needed but am editting after reading another comment from Jan Sasawi about the dangers of using the state. We definitely have to be very conscious of this. The next question of course is transition from capitalism to what? I know professor Wolffe has addressed part of this in his proposed worker co-ops which I generally agree with but I also believe we need a more substantial vision, not a blueprint, of the society and its institutions we want. I have been sympathetic to participatory economics or PARRCON, but am becoming more sympathetic to inclusive democracy as explained by Takis Fotopoulos, which has a substantial critique of participatory economics.
Professor Wolffe, do you feel it is important that the left has a more rigorous vision of the society it wants and the institutions required to support that society that it can more fully coalesce and unify around and do you support any particular vision or have critiques of the ones I have mentioned?
Unfortunately the left seems more prone to infighting than coalescing these days.
Perhaps the government can be made up of members selected by sortition every 8 or so number of years to ensure that it stays democratic and represents the whole country?
At the 5:40 mark Professor Wolf mentions the Paris Commune. The Paris Commune developed near the end of the Franco/Prussian War in 1871. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon died in 1865. What I believe he meant to reference was the French Revolution of 1848.
Not surprised he can’t get his history straight.
I don't think he made a mistake, he was referring to Proudhonists (not Proudhon himself) and their actions during the Paris Commune in 1871, he even said the year.
We dont even need a private sector except for maybe small businesses and the self employed. All other business should be state owned or publicly owned at the local level.
No.
Prof. Wolff, thank you for your insights, as always, they are appreciated.
Thank you for this one as a Proudhonian Anarcho-Mutualist, I've never been opposed to using the State myself. There is much to learn from both Marx, and Proudhon. Both philosophies have more in common than they differ.
Good on you @Ki Finnson. We can learn a lot from the Roman games skit in 'The Life of Brian' "We need to beat the real enemy." "The Romans?" "No! The People's Front of Judea!"
@@Kimwilliams45 No, the Judean People's Front is the real enemy.
Anarcho-Mutualist is a tautology, and if you support harnessing state power, you're not an anarchist.
@@leondarley2811 incorrect it's the oldest anarchist school. In addition not all anarchist schools are flat (anarcho-symcicalism), and being reformist as opposed to revolutionary is a pragmatic choice. One can hold multiple ideologies. Stop virtue signaling and insisting on ideological purity you need to read more theory and advance beyond a simplistic understanding on praxis.
@@kifinnsson A tautology is a redundant phrase, such as armed gunman. If you don't know a word, look it up before embarrassing yourself with preconceptions, considering I'm a mutualist.
Electoralism is an exercise in futility and concession to representative government. It repudiates the maxim that means and ends are inseperable, arguably the crux of the anarchist/marxist divide.
P.s. Nice buzzword, but I'm not virtue signalling, as I'm not trying to gloat moral character to anyone. Any more ad hominems you'd like to make?
I would say being organized from below grants the people the independence from those above. Coops and other support social structures with them such as unions, and community groups at least are a devolving of power back to the people.
It’s also a false dichotomy because it’s an inaccurate depiction of Marx’s views on the matter. Even so-called “old Marx” (because there is another inaccurate depiction of young Marx being more libertarian and old Marx being more authoritarian) argued that, “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.” Marx praised the Paris Commune for its various attempts to reorganize society, but went on to write that, "One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that 'the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.' ” While Marx did feel the state would play a role in our emancipation, he felt it would be the result of more democratic pressures forcing the matter: "Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it."
Personally, I get to libertarian socialism from classical liberalism.. kind of Thomas Jefferson meets Proudhon. Influenced by anarchism, but not seeing it truly possible anytime soon (it basically requires the entire world to get there at once), i'd argue for a left minarchist state that basically has the functions of Starfleet in Star Trek: science and education, universal healthcare, perhaps Proudhon's People's bank, mutual defense (until all imperialism is gone at least), and diplomacy. I agree with democratizing the state, but I also think that if it can be left to the people (below) it should be. The state is a social construct that should be a tool of the people, not a ruling body.
Democratize everything! All business! Schools! Hospitals! Politics! (Remove all money) The so-called Security Services! Does this mean there will be no expertise? No, just the reverse. More and better expertise. Fabulous video!
nonsense.
@@robertprice9052 people fear what they don't understand and they lack understanding because they refuse to explore the ideas for themselvesand reach their own conclusions. But when spoken to about these ideas in a way and on a level devoid of reactionary political opportunities, the agreement is practically universal.
Leftists and leftism is not any kind of enemy despite the century of propaganda telling you otherwise.
Screw that.
This is a wonderful reconciliation of two philosophies as was an earlier video on Marxism and the State.
I have always thought that the best way to use State power is to have real democracy but on the original ideas of soviets - people's councils. Every neighbourhood of say up to 500 people could be a neighbourhood council, who would determine what goes on for their area. For wider issues they would elect a representative to a community council. This representative would convey and if necessary, vote in accordance with the wishes of the neighbourhood council, and so on up to area, regional national and international levels.
All politics are local! Think Global, Act Local. A strong Foundation is the base needed to create meaningful change.
Well put. Agreed. In an advance capitalist economy or in a semi colonial semi feudal economy we need both approach. In an advance capitalist country no need for a peoples army but a peoples army is needed in a semi colonial semi feudal economy.
Peoples army is needed everywhere the capatlists will not just give up with out a fight these western countries have massacred for far far less just look at all there fighting with unions or blm protests
Honestly, I see Richard Wolff's ideas as a synthesis between Proudhon and Marx.
Historically, Marxism moved away from cooperativism during the 20th century, but Proudhon's theory focuses on cooperatives. Democracy at Work is a recovery of Proudhon's ideas by contemporary Marxism that seeks to reinvent itself after the collapse of the Marxist-Leninist experience, looking in cooperative democracy as a way to create a new strategy of struggle in the 21st century.
This is safe with a square grass of under trees and peaceful cozy where listening up Richard Wolff's voice to new earth land all the world
I think sortition would ensure that the government doesn't cause a split in power between the country.
I like when someone mention Milovan Djilas... 😁
Nice work, proffesor!
No,to division! Yes,to unity!
The main problem with Milovan Djilas is that he confused Leninism with Marxism, and State capitalism with socialism.
@@Kimwilliams45 Aha,Stalin did it first! 😂😂😂
@@slobodanboban8717 Maybe Lenin beat him to it :)
@@Kimwilliams45 Yea,that can be the case, however, Lenin was also honest as far as he writed in an article that "if we can bring state capitalism" in our economy in next 10 years,it will be wonderful" so he did it intentionaly. Not by chance...
@@slobodanboban8717 That's interesting. Somebody gave me the 'Selected Works of Lenin' but I have not read them much.
Spot on, Professor.
Excellent insight Dr. Wolff, Marx!!!
Live in Australia I think that what you refer to the left here is actually the centre the centre is right and the right approaching far right.
I always say I would vote just left of centre except centre is too far right.
Don’t forget about Kropotkin and Bakunin
I have a mild dislike of the phrase "from the bottom up". It implies to me that its from "the bottom of the barrel". It has a slight connotation to me that the people at the bottom, the "mass of people", are replaceable drones with no power, no intelligence, no value, except insofar as they can be manipulated to grant power to those at the top who would control them. Maybe I read too much into it, but I feel that a phrase like "the totality of all citizens", or "the country's working people" has more dignity in it. The whole idea of being anti-establishment is to declare that the establishment is invalid, especially because it denies it's citizens the dignity that they deserve. If an adherent of socialism talks like they are a part of the establishment, using establishment phrases, even if it is mostly to show competency in economics or politics, then they are undermining their own project.
Point me to one example of a concentrated authority whether it be a corporation or a state of not oppressing a individual or group under it.
BOTH = top down. It is either voluntarist through anarchism OR dictatorial. U cant have both
Bravo! We need cooperatives and we need some kind of government assistance and coordination.. I've asked for more information about HOW government could be financed about how a country can take care of those things that affect everyone but that a smallish number cannot deal with. Things like coping with climate change, for instance, require some central authority.
My major concern is that there be no substitution of state authority for capitalist authority. I like local control a lot, I love democracy on every level and I want the right and ability to influence, force if necessary, authorities to listen when people have opinions and worries.
My biggest frustration as an American is that legislators are organized and entrenched and they believe their own lies and myths. They simply don't understand or care about solving the problems that they intellectually know affect people but which folks cannot solve on their own. Legislators get lazy. They give more loyalty to each other and less to their constituents. As one of those activist constituents, we need to be able to get the entrenched and powerful to listen and act. That's where voting, organizing, and democracy at the grass roots level comes in. It's democracy on every level that is most important, to my way of thinking.
I know that government of some sort is necessary. I just don't want government to become a force we cannot influence. That's why there is no gun control, why abortion is going to become illegal again and why someone .Ike Trump could try to overthrow our government to retain power just as a new administration was being recognized. We just can't keep liveing that. I won't live like that. We must stop this undemocratic ideology that is exacerbating an unfair and unwieldy system like capitalism. I don't want to carry that kind of system forward. I want much more local control, cooperative management of as much as possible, and I also want to see some assistance and coordination from government. Finally, I do want to control dangerous and unlawful people so they cannot do anything that suddenly or deliberately comes to mind without concern for others. We need to learn cooperation, concensus and elevate democracy to make a better system. We know competition but cooperation is new.
That's right! We need both actions, in the same spirit of radical democracy. It's a combined and delicate process to undertake.
I believe that Prof Wolff said “democratise the state” when he meant to say “democratise the workplace”.
Minute 5:20
@@ivanoleaanimator i am pretty sure he meant democratize the state. this is what Marx meant when he said "Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it."
This is the central debate among the left. Most on both sides are so self-righteous about their position. It's terrible. Thank you, Prof. Wolff.
The contestation between Bakunin and Marx would probably be a better blueprint for delivering the dialogue between anarchists and communists.
Begging to ask; "should the club be used by those under the oppression of the club?"
Mao said the same thing.
Yes. Diversity of Tactics.
shocking to see american people talking about marxism, anarchism, etc, a treat to see
👍👍👍👍👍
succinct
There will be 2 systems in one geography in the start and in the whole world. One is capitalism and another is scientific socialism. We are starting this concept in Nepal. If all the socialist in the world are united and make their own system by contributing their knowledge and skill, capitalism will be in big crisis.
Proudhon didn't have a response to the Paris Commune because he died six years before it was established.
Wolff referred to Proudhonists, not Proudhon. He said that Proudhonists and Marxists had a different reaction to the Paris Commune.
Shame on you, strawman.
@@julianquinn2032 I heard "Proudhon" but you're probably right. BTW: Anarchists call themselves Anarchists, Anarcho-Syndicalists, Anarcho-Communists, Mutualists, and so on. Compare that to Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, Stalinists, Trotskyists, Maoists. Can you spot the difference?
@@rcmrcm3370 I'm a strawman? Are you the heartless tinman or the cowardly lion?
@@pillmuncher67 No, what are you on about?
No one should take Michel Onfray seriously. He is an opportunist whose ideas shift regularly with no consistency.
I would choose Proudhon above Marx
🏴
I always was bit sceptical about more ordinary people running a business. Doesn't it take a certain talent that only a few percent have ? But suddenly I wonder if there is not another "open source software"to help and of course there could be advice.
Proudon was loved and visited Leo Tolstoy who shared many of his opinions on Anarchy and Christian values being one and the same and the only real solution to a Golden age of the Kingdom of heaven coming to Earth
Although I want so badly to see this country evolving, politically, past capitalism; in the back of my mind I am always concerned we get a valid chance to exact a huge change and end up like the USSR or even Mao Zedong's form of cruel Communism. Sociopaths are drawn to places of power, prestige, wealth and insinuate themselves into every level of political groups. Marxes and Wolffs die and dictators take over and ruin it all. It's human nature and worries me.
there's no way to learn through this with theory only, it takes doing the work and experiencing the moments that possibilities peek through the prison of capitalism
You’re too kind to Australians dr Wolffe. The green representation that has taken place is genuine left. The teal revolution not so much. On the outside they look kind of left. A group of ‘independents’ working together for a common good. In reality they are funded by two billionaires and they will represent these two billionaires interests in owning the renewable energy sector in the future. This is actually a divide between Australia’s ruling capitalist class and the turf this war has been fought over is the richest political seats in the country. All of the safest pro capitalist seats were all one by these teal ‘independents’. The base of the liberal party was literally ripped away from them. Make no mistake they are definitely not leftist in anyway. At best they are bourgeois feminists and bourgeois environmentalists. In reality they only care for their petty bourgeois needs and nothing else. Green left weekly wrote a good article on it.
Well..Marx Dielectical Materialism is much more advanced, practically realistic.
Wolff should spend some more time actually reading Proudhon.
New class or ''Spartacus class''.......Spartacus a slave lead a rebellion killed slave owners and became a slave owner ..Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahaha.But it is different !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Viva la state socialism!
Who cares?
Me.
I guess the word "rentier" is not going to come up AGAIN!!!! So that what
capitalism IS, will not come up AGAIN!!!!
This means that the self-contradiction of socialism and the rejection of "private property"
will not come up, AGAIN!!!!
So it would seem that your choice as a socialist will be, being a slave to the co-op or
a slave to the state or both is your future.
Whereas the "worker-owned" co-op is a contradiction...and you are really a capitalist
along with every other living thing.
Let the babble commence and continue...